White Clothes
by Settely
Summary: An on-going fill of a kink meme's prompt. Basically, what would happen if an LI turned out to be indoctrinated while Shepard and the squad are rushing for the beam in London. Kaidan/MaleShepard


At first it feels as if invisible fingers began caressing his spine, no matter the heavy armour, the extra layers of carbon foils, the heavy load of medigel applied anywhere it has been needed. Kaidan does not pay the sensation much of a mind while he is running a few steps behind Shepard's back, a statue highlighted by the bluish glow of the beam. There is shouting everywhere, people rolling left and right to avoid being vaporized so it's surely is not the greatest of times to linger on a phantom feeling of being touched.

Shepard grunts, having evaded the laser by the skin of his teeth, looking back at them, making sure nobody is left behind. Nobody is doing the thing alone, nobody has to look the emptiness in the eye. A stray rock the size of a child's fist hits Kaidan sideways, debris put into motion falling onto all of them from the sky, the earth itself or anywhere else. That must be the cause of the low hum radiating from within the back of his skull, a dull ache blocking every other possible thought as if anybody could think clearly with all of their strength meant for the time being to go straight into their legs' muscles, dammit.

'Move, soldier, _MOVE_!'

It's beginning to be hard to breathe quickly enough, to get the oxygen pumping into his bloodstream but Shepard cannot be lost from sight, not after everything they have accomplished along the ride. Not after having forgiven Kaidan for being such a hot-head, for losing the will to go on after having waited so long for something never taken for granted. No, Kaidan must go forward now, make the muscles squeeze themselves, straighten and then squirt back once again, go faster and faster till the light gets them all on-board, till the Reapers get kicked back to where they have crawled from, have the motherfucking happy-ending he has never believed to be obtainable for either of them. By God, he wants to see Shepard sweat underneath the sun and not from the heat the laser provides them with as if they were in the middle of some goddamn tropics and not London, to see him grow his hair long and gray, wielding weeding tools instead of a sniper rifle.

'LEFT! EVERYBODY GO _LEFT_, FOR GOD'S SAKE!'

It's too late to feel a migraine, they've gone far enough not to think about such down-to-earth things but the pain starts radiating. Having twisted from a deformed sound-wave, it starts creeping round every nerve. There are lines obscuring Kaidan's line of view, darkish shapes akin enough to waves that for a moment he thinks he might have gotten something in his eye. Shepard doubles over for a breath or two a couple of metres before them and suddenly, out of the blue, Kaidan feels the urge to draw his gun. Just like that, looking at the profile of the man having ducked a split of seconds ago behind some good for nothing Mako, it makes him see red. Voices start to whisper incoherent words, accents and meanings mixing into a patched-up puzzle that fuels the strange feeling, that makes his fingers roam round the pistol, caress the handle like a long lost lover returning home.

Someone screams from the left or behind his back suddenly frozen in place, suddenly paralysed on the battlefield that starts falling into itself. Husks come in two lines from the sides and people shoot at them, desperately trying to get out of the line of fire, to get close enough to Shepard to have his back. Snot begins falling from the corner of Kaidan's mouth, a thick droplet rolling down the chin onto the chest-piece in daze. Nothing seems to be making sense now, why is everybody running, where do they want to get, why is he in the middle of this in the first place? The perspective seems to have shortened itself somehow, to have given way to a smaller portion of reality his brain ceases to be able to process. Blood seethes in his veins, a song of fire and mayhem.

Someone calls out to him, he feels his body being jostled and sees an object the size of a giant suddenly rushing towards him, a vehicle or maybe a house, who knows in a place like this goddamn hole forgotten even by the devil itself?

'_KAIDAN!_ Shit, Liara, LIARA!'

It's all that can be understood now, a prayer or an unstoppable list of names, the repetition making something stir inside of him, stop and start working once again like in a broken mechanism someone forgot to buy new batteries for. There are some other words as well, something whose meaning he cannot recall any longer, vowels clashing with sounds and holding some texture, importance, weight.

An instant push to the side a second later, Shepard's hard and irregular breathing on his cheek, a streak of blood flowing down one of his half-opened eyes do not make the situation any more understandable. It's the smell that betrays him, sweat, the aroma of heated metal and old grass mixed with hair being on fire. The man brings Kaidan close to himself, his baby-blues glistening in the light like neon signs, panicky and helpless.

'I've got you, oh God, I've got you, I'vegotyou-'

Shepard's arms encircle his waist heavily and lead him somewhere, the feel of his body being so close overwhelming Kaidan, bringing him on edge and it's then that his hand feels the handle once again. It's cool, one hundred Celsius degrees colder than their touching faces, the temperature radiating through his gloves as the humming grows into a scream ready to tear his eardrums apart, ready to split his skull wide open. There is nothing left to feel by now, no pain and no emotions, just a cause to fight for, something shadowy and out of focus but there, in the back of his head.

'I won't let you destroy it all. I **can't**.'

And Kaidan cocks the gun and puts it against Shepard's temple, against the short hair tingling his own skin. He moves it slowly from the bone to rest against the cheek, hollow duo of muscles and ligaments that seems to have gone grey from the fatigue and fright. He can feel Shepard halt to a stop at the feel of the metal, can feel the muscles tensing underneath all of the Kevlar even though there are layers of fabric putting their skin at a distance, making it impossible to feel intimate right now and there.

'Kaidan?'

He remembers the body blindly though, every trail marked with lips or fingers that wanted to discover every possible path, to make up for the lost years but there are no memories now coming to his head like in the past. Just a white cloth floating in the air whenever Kaidan tries to grasp at some thoughts that used to be somehow important to him.

'Kaidan, what are you-'

Shepard mouths and it's then that Kaidan pistol-whips him, tensing his hold on the body that suddenly goes partly-limp in his man tries to say something, tries to push back but Kaidan strikes precisely and with little emotion as blood obscures his vision, as his biotic powers recharge after having fallen to the ground. Shepard screams when the shield breaks with a sickening crack and soon he starts trashing as the electrocution takes its toll, as muscles contradict themselves and are unable to break their hold on the limbs entwined with Kaidan's own. Foam gathers on his lips as the shakings continue, as the body moves to and fro while Kaidan watches impassively just centimetres away. Debris continues to fly round them but the fallen silhouette of the vehicle or anything resembling provides a good cover for every possible circumstance this time.

'You'd like to take this all away from me, wouldn't you? You won't leave with nothing like the last time, I _won't _let you.'

The humming silences itself for a moment, a wave of pleasure flooding Kaidan's brain as if he was in the middle of eating a chocolate pudding and not frying a human nervous system alive. It's as if something was rewarding him for his efforts and telling him to go on, to be more daring in this area, to show people that collective happiness cannot be destroyed, that they will fall trying to break the thing that gives him so much. Not just satisfaction, not just a new purpose but also hope. Nothing more and nothing less, the knowledge that there is still something waiting for him, an always dreaming God ready to show the absolute to Its faithful students.

'I've got a new home, you know.'

He just needs to keep on pressing his fingers deeper within the line between Shepard's armour and the neckline, watch the pain settle in his features. Just ignore some other wave of feelings that rushes towards the surface and makes his head spin, makes his heart beat furiously fast, makes the headache grow blinding as if contradicting ideas began blooming there within the last two minutes. Adrenaline prolongs its effect though and when a small spark meets his eye, a glimmering armour moving a few feet in front of them both, his anger flourishes anew. It's not even anger now though, it's pure fury that fuels his biotics. A flash of blue, a person is sent flying, some other rushing from the nine, a duet on the far north. A couple of husks get headshots for free as well, clear shots that rang aloud despite the deafening noise of the voices and the laser beam.

'SHEPARD, no! _NO!_'

It's an animalistic cry, something that gets through the thick fog of the quieting whispering and wallowing that keeps echoing, a quick warning before Kaidan feels a bullet pierce his shield and, a second later, another one does the same trick. The silhouette is not like the others, the uniform rather bringing the woman in clear view than masking her within the grey surroundings. So does the brightly blue skin.

'Step away from him, Alenko. NOW.'

He awkwardly holds Shepard steady on one of his hips sideways, the body still twitching and weighty like an old ragdoll. He's close to losing consciousness, keeping awake with the last strands of sheer will power rather than psychical abilities. His face is buried in the crook of Kaidan's neck like in the old days, like back on the planet whose name he can't remember but it's all unimportant now.

'Come on, do it.' Kaidan says smoothly, propping the dead weight snugly, half- dragging the man over his chest so that a new shield emerges. Words come quicker onto his lips than thoughts into the head, than anything else. The laser goes a few centimetres from his left elbow, the stench of frying metal hard in his nostrils and the woman has to jump away to avoid being hurt. 'Prove your luck before it's too late to have a try.'

'You traitorous bastard.' She spits out, looking at him with eyes full of unmasked hatred. She fiddles with the guns on her sides before choosing something that looks suspiciously close to a Magnum, like in the old movies from the last century. 'They indoctrinated you during the abduction of the colony of Horizon, am I right? Or rather, have you been sabotaging us from the _sheer_ beginning?'

'I...' Horizon? The name seems to ring a bell somehow but why would it-

The pain explodes in his head. It's like thousands of needles get stuck at one of his temples at once, something he has never encountered so far, something that makes his eyes go blurry and makes his hold on Shepard shake. The voices start buzzing once again, arguing all of the sudden as if his mind was a crowded street full of clerks, a cinema filled with people laughing all at once, a park inhabited by pairs making love to each other in full spring's bloom.

It's all too much of a sensation to him, it slows everything down to a couple of breaths and whizzing sounds of air being pumped greedily to and fro from his lungs, another round of bullets coming his way, silence when unconscious Shepard falls finally to the ground, his head colliding heavily with Kaidan's dusty boots.

Afterwards there are only darkness and the heavy aftertaste of blood oozing from his mouth when he joins the still body at his feet.

Kaidan can't remember much when he awakes. The fluorescent clock says it's about a quarter past five in the morning while he blindly feels round himself, looking for that familiar source of warmth. They still have round an hour of sleep left.

'Hey.'

It's still kind of mind-blowing to think that he's finally had the courage to take the first step, to act on the things he has been dwelling on for the past three years. It's... Good to have someone to look after and have the thing returned. Yeah, it's... More than good.

There is no other body in the bed with him though and to top that, the bed itself is not the one of theirs. Well, technically speaking, the one is Shepard's own rather but sentiments have done their job over time.

Sheets smell of chlorine here, not army deodorants. The room seems smaller and the walls brighter somehow when he looks around, heavy eyelids trying not to fall down immediately. Strange, Kaidan thinks to himself before bringing the covers closer round himself. He soon drifts off back to sleep.

'I still can't believe what-'

The battle for London. Banshees, brutes and flying everywhere debris, the pain in his chest after having run for more than half an hour. Fear chokes him when scenes begin replaying themselves in his head, minute after minute, gunshot after gunshot. Shepard falling back to take a deeper breath, Liara jumping to and fro to avoid the laser, soldiers screaming some incoherent words to each other round them. Husks materializing out of nowhere just to claw at his skull, aiming knees into his chest and muttering never ending slurs of sounds. And then blackness, a dull hum echoing from somewhere outside. Or maybe the inside, his very being, the brain itself while he trashes in-between the material and bad dreams.

'Is Shepard alright, where-'

'People, get your act to-'

The buzzing doesn't seem to stop. It's as if a crowd was going to and fro just millimetres away from his body, debating aloud about a thousand and one things at once. He can make out only a couple of words said in each voice. Some feminine, a couple of masculine ones. Talking, whispering, nearly shouting.

'I think he's waking-'

'Look, why don't we just-'

Kaidan wakes up immediately at having water spilled all over his face. He coughs uncontrollably and it takes a moment for his eyes to stop water.


End file.
